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A joint replacement at one Los Angeles hospital costs $297,000; at another, 12 miles away, it's $84,000 – a gap that health-care experts say could help consumers, armed with such information, play a role in driving costs down.

Everybody knows US medical costs are high. Now Americans get to see exactly how those high prices can vary from hospital to hospital – sometimes within a very short space of miles.

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Wednesday released a new database that lays the issue bare in stark detail.

The data trove comes as health care costs are already in the national spotlight, thanks to their impact on family and government budgets and partisan disagreement over what policies will best address the problem.

Disparity among hospitals raises the question: Could providers migrate toward the lower-cost end of the spectrum, without sacrificing quality?

Many health-care experts, citing academic research on waste or mispricing, believe that’s possible. And some argue that consumers, armed with the right information and incentives to shop around, could play an important role in nudging costs down.

The newly released numbers could add fodder for that argument.

The cost disparities in Wednesday’s report are sometimes stunning.

California alone, as the nation’s most populous state, offers thousands of fees to compare in the federal database.

In the category “respiratory system diagnosis,” with fewer than 96 hours on ventilator support, charges range from $276,000 at Washington Hospital in Fremont to $33,000 at a Kaiser Foundation Hospital near Los Angeles.
More at http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/0508/New-report-reveals-stunnin
g-disparities-in-health-care-costs?nav=87-frontpage-entryNineItem]
You can find the report at http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Tre
nds-and-Reports/Medicare-Provider-Charge-Data/index.html] and an interactive map of "How Much Hospitals Charge For the Same Procedures" at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/08/business/how-much-hospit
als-charge.html?_r=0]. Also more information at http://blogs.marketwatch.com/encore/2013/05/08/medicare-spills-beans-o
n-hospital-billing/.